


The Three Brothers And The Birds of Abaddon

by ljunattainable



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2015 Supernatural Reversebang Challenge, AU, Alternate Universe, Baby Adam, Gen, John only appears briefly, Kid Dean, Kid Sam, Kid angel Cas, bird cas, evil fairy Abaddon, fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:24:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6072103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljunattainable/pseuds/ljunattainable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baby Adam made ill-use of his recently gained ability to walk and stepped through a mushroom circle. Dean and Sammy are not very good babysitters but nevertheless loving big(ger) brothers and follow after him. They find themselves in fall forest not unlike the one they just left except for the fact that there's no one around (not even Baby Adam). Also, they meet a talking bird.  But where is Baby Adam; what does that red strand of hair tied around Castiel's leg mean; and how will they get home? Those are all questions they should be asking themselves very seriously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Three Brothers And The Birds of Abaddon

**Author's Note:**

> Having not got any of the art I thought I could do justice to in the 2015 Supernatural Reverse Bang, I had resigned myself to not writing this year, but then I picked up a pinch hit on a whim for a delightful fairytale art piece by [Daffenger](http://daffenger.livejournal.com/26150.html). The art will also be on tumblr here: [vandrawsing](http://vandrawsing.tumblr.com). Not all the art is in the fic so go take a looksee.
> 
> This was a big thing for me because I absolutely don't do fairytales (or AUs much). But happy that I could achieve the low word count set by the moderators given the short amount of time to write something I obviously went on to churn out 7000 words in a week.
> 
> This isn't my normal stuff, but I had fun, and it especially helped that Daffenger was the best person to work with. Enthusiastic and encouraging at all times. It's been a pleasure.
> 
> \---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Once upon a time in the state of Kansas, and the city of Lawrence, Dean, Sam and their baby half-brother Adam lived with their widowed father, John.

John is a hunter, not of deer or ducks to put on the family’s dinner table, but of supernatural creatures that prey on people deep in the forests, or in graveyards, or even sometimes in their own homes. That’s how Dean and Sam lost their mom and that’s how, several years later, Adam lost his mom too. And that’s why, one day, Dean and Sam, and maybe Adam too, will be hunters.

Dean’s looking forward to it. Dean’s ten years old, four years older than Sammy and nearly 9 years older than Adam. It’s his job to take care of his brothers when his Dad’s not around. 

His dad’s been training him in the skills he needs to be a hunter and right now he’s learning how to master a bow and arrow. Dad doesn’t want him getting too close to the creatures he’s hunting and arrows can be silver tipped for killing some kinds of supernatural creatures, or they can be dipped in poison or blood to kill or disable others. When Dean gets good enough at using the bow and arrow his Dad’s promised that he’ll take him on a real hunt and Dean can’t wait.

He’s practicing now while Sam is playing with Adam in the yellowing leaves from the fall trees. Dean’s painted targets on the trunks of the trees in the forest. So far he has a ring of arrows around the trunk, all in his target but none dead center where they really need to be before Dad will say he’s good enough. He lifts up his bow and sights his arrow. This is going to be the one that hits true. He pulls back on the bowstring.

“Dean!” 

Sam’s panic-sounding screech makes Dean jump. He lets loose the arrow before he’s ready but he doesn’t even stop to see where it lands before he’s turning and running into the woods to where Sam and Adam were playing.

“Sam,” he calls as he runs, only to turn a tree and barge straight into Sam coming the other way. 

Sam grabs Dean’s arm and tugs. “Come quickly.”

“Where’s Adam?” Sam doesn’t have Adam and when Dean looks behind Sam he can’t see him. 

“He’s gone,” Sam tugs Dean again and Dean picks up speed until they’re both running hard back the way Sam came. 

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Dean asks between breaths.

“One minute he was there and the next he wasn’t,” Sam says. His voice is shaky. Sam stops running when he reaches a leafless sapling surrounded by older trees. “We were just playing. I was burying Adam in the leaves. Then he pulled himself up on this tree, and I only turned around for a second, I swear Dean, but when I looked back he was gone.” Sam starts crying, tears of fear streaking the dirt on his face.

Dean looks around desperately. He’s responsible for Adam. He passed the buck by asking Sam to look after him while he did his target practice. They’ve got to find him. How can he have gone far? He’s only just learned to walk. Dean hopes some creature hasn’t taken him but his Dad swore this forest was clean.

“It’s alright Sam, it’s not your fault.” Sam chokes back on a sob. “Where was he exactly when you last saw him?” 

Sam points at the east side of the sapling, closest to them.

Dean crosses to the tree and Sam follows after him. Dean starts brushing leaves away to expose the ground around the tree. Maybe the leaves were hiding some kind of hollow and Adam dropped in. Sam gets down to his knees and copies him. They’ve exposed all the east side of the sapling when Dean moves some leaves and finds a mushroom. It sets off all kinds of alarm bells. He doesn’t want to find anymore but he finds another, then another, then another. Sam looks at him with alarmed eyes. 

“I didn’t know, Dean.” Dean and Sammy know about mushroom circles and how they can lead to a fairy realm. It’s one of the first things they learn, as soon as they’re old enough to understand, along with salting the doors and windows. Adam’s too young to understand yet but if Sam had seen it, the boys would have played elsewhere.

“I know Sammy,” Dean says. It’s Dean’s fault. Dean was responsible for looking after Sammy and Adam and now it looks like Adam’s gone and fallen through a mushroom circle that had been covered up by fall leaves, and Dad is going to kill him.

“We need to get Dad,” Sam says. 

“Oh no we don’t,” Dean says, grabbing Sam’s arm. “There’s no way we’re getting Dad. We were supposed to look after Adam. What do you think Dad’s going to say? And besides,” Dean says, standing as straight and as tall as he can, “I’m a hunter in training and we’re going to get Adam back.”

“But Dean you’ve only just started - ”

“Do you trust me, Sammy?”

“Of course, Dean,” Sam says. He stands up tall too but he still only comes up to Dean’s shoulder. 

“Then let’s go and get Adam back.” Dean puts his bow and the arrows in their quiver over his shoulder. Though he’d never admit it to Sam, Dean’s scared. Dean’s Uncle Bobby says you’re a fool if you’re not scared and Dean isn’t anyone’s fool. Being brave, Uncle Bobby says, is doing something even though you’re scared, so Dean takes a shaky breath and reaches out for Sam’s hand, then he tugs Sam forward with him and together they step through the mushroom circle.

At first it looks just like the forest they left, but then Dean notices differences. The way the light casts a yellow glow over all the fallen leaves. How quiet it is, too. Dean hadn’t noticed the forest they were in had been noisy with the sound of insects and crows and songbirds until it wasn’t. Sam shuffles closer and holds Dean’s hand tightly.

“We don’t want to attract attention here, so be quiet okay?” Dean all but whispers. Every noise sounds louder in the silence. “Let’s look around. Adam can’t have gone far.”

They circle the tree looking for Adam, or any clue to where he might have gone. Dean refuses to believe that he’s been found and taken away by fairies in the short time since he went missing. They’ve travelled a little way away from the tree, farther than Dean thinks Adam could have crawled or walked on his own, when Sam calls out trying to be as quiet as possible.

“I found something!”

Dean hurries over. Sam’s pointing excitedly at the ground and when Dean looks down he sees Adam’s bib lying on top of the leaves with ‘Adam’ clear as day embroidered in the material. Dean can even see a spill of the apple sauce that he had for lunch.

Dean picks up the bib and looks around but there’s no sign of Adam.

“Adam?” Dean calls quietly, but there’s no answering sound, not even a rustle or a gurgle. He calls a few more times, and Sam joins in too, but nothing stirs.

Dean looks back to tree where they came through the fairy circle and works out a line from the tree and the bib, then turns and faces the other way. A faint trail leads off into the forest. The leaves on the ground have been disturbed as if someone’s been that way recently. Dean can’t pretend any longer that the fairies don’t have Adam. He pulls his bow and one arrow ready.

“Let’s go,” he says with a lot more confidence than he feels.

Dean and Sam walk in single file, Dean in front, Sam behind, down the narrow trail. Dean hopes they’re going the right way. He watches carefully ahead and to the sides, and occasionally checks behind him to keep an eye out for fairies or anything else that might live in this realm. Sam behind him is doing the same. Sam holds onto the tail of Dean’s shirt so that he doesn’t get left behind. They don’t see anything, and it’s still much too quiet for Dean’s liking. Even their footfalls sound loud in the silence of the forest. 

After a while Sam tugs on Dean’s shirt and Dean comes to a halt.

“Yeah?” he whispers. It seems important to whisper when everything else is so quiet.

Sam simply points up into the trees and Dean follows the direction of his finger. A little sky-blue bird is sitting on the branch above their heads. It’s the first living thing they’ve seen since they came here but it has a thin piece of red string, or maybe it’s hair, tied to one leg that smells of fairy magic to Dean. The bird seems to be watching them intently, it’s head tilted to one side. Dean jumps up to try and grab it but the bird flutters off the branch out of his reach. When Dean drops back down to the ground, the bird lands back on the branch watching them again.

“Let’s keep going,” Dean says, eying the bird with a distrustful scowl. If that bird tries anything he’s going to shoot it out of the sky.

Dean and Sam start down the path again, the bird flying around looking agitated, swooping low over their heads but it seems harmless and after a while Dean relaxes a little. Sam tries to catch it as it flits around but it’s too agile and fast for him and it easily keeps out of his way. They haven’t walked much further before the bird flies a little way ahead and lands on a low hanging branch, almost level with the top of Dean’s head.

“You have to go back where you came from,” the bird says and Dean nearly drops his bow and arrow in surprise.

Sam pushes past him. His eyes are open wide in excitement. “You can talk?”

Dean pulls Sam back before he can get too close. Talking birds aren’t usually good. Not that he’s ever met one. 

The bird tilts its head to one side while it looks at him. “Obviously.”

“Fairies,” Dean says, and spits in disgust out of the side of his mouth.

“I’m not a fairy,” the bird says, “but there are fairies here, bad fairies.” The bird hops around on its branch, clearly nervous or as nervous as a bird can clearly be. “You must go back,” the bird insists.

“But we can’t,” Sam says. “And we won’t until we find our brother.” 

“Your brother?”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He holds out the bib. “Adam. Have you seen him?”

The bird fidgets and flutters its wings, ruffling its feathers. “How old is he?”

“He just turned one a month ago,” Sam says. “We were supposed to be looking after him so we have to find him.”

“Have you seen him?” Dean asks the bird who’s looking uncomfortable.

“I’ve seen him,” the bird admits. “My mistress, the evil fairy, Abaddon, has your brother but there’s no way for you to get him back. It’s too dangerous. You have to go home before she gets you too.”

“Your mistress?” Dean raises his bow and arrow. It’s a trick, he knew it.

“Not willingly,” the bird says darting out of Dean’s target area. “Why do you think I’m trying to get you to go home.” 

“We can’t go home until we get Adam back,” Dean says, lowering the bow. “C’mon Sammy.” 

Dean starts walking down the path again and the bird flies off its branch and starts flying around their heads again, urging them to turn around and go home.

“Can all the birds here talk?” Sam asks.

“No,” the bird says. “You must go home before Abaddon catches you.”

“Then why can you talk?” Sam asks.

“Leave the bird alone, Sam,” Dean says, ploughing on as fast as he can down the trail.

“My name isn’t ‘the bird’,” says the bird. “It’s Castiel.” 

“Yeah? Then leave Cas alone, Sam,” Dean says. He stares pointedly at Castiel. “We’re not listening to him because a talking bird with a name and a piece of hair tied around its leg who’s admitted to working for an evil fairy doesn’t sound trustworthy to me.”

“Abaddon will eat you if she catches you, you can trust me on that.”

“Not if we catch her first,” Dean says. 

“You won’t,” says Cas, flying around them in distress. He flies right up to Dean’s face and Dean bats him out of the way, though he’s careful not to hurt him. 

“Will she eat Adam?” Dean asks, as Cas flies back.

“Abaddon doesn’t eat babies. She catches them and trains them to cook for her and clean for her and generally look after her and do her bidding. She only eats older kids that fall through the mushroom circles because they’re so difficult to get to do whatever she wants them to do.” Cas lands on Dean’s shoulder and sighs deeply. “I have to say at the moment I see what she means.”

Cas looks kinda sad, and Dean feels a little guilty, but they can’t leave without Adam. It’s just not an option. “We can’t go back without Adam. But,” Dean says, having a sudden bright idea, “You could get us past this Abaddon, help us rescue Adam and then we’ll leave and we’ll be out of your hair.” The idea takes root. “Yep,” Dean says excitedly, “With you on our side we’d stand a much better chance wouldn’t we?”

Sam joins in excitedly. “Yeah, Cas, help us. Help us get Adam back, please.”

Cas isn’t so enthusiastic. His little bird body shivers on Dean’s shoulder. “I can’t,” Cas says. “She’ll kill me if I help you.” 

“You’re helping us now,” Dean points out.

“And she’ll bake me in a pie if she ever finds out, which she won’t because if you’ve gone home or been made into stew you won’t be able to tell her.”

“Oh, well,” Dean says, “If you’re simply too scared, Sam and I will just have to do it on our own. Nice meeting you Cas. C’mon Sam.” Dean brushes Cas off his shoulder and heads off along the trail again.

Cas flies in front of his face and flies backwards while Dean walks forward. “You don’t have a chance.”

“Not without your help, no probably not,” Dean says, striding forward.

“But even with my help you probably don’t have a chance,” Cas says. He flies around Dean’s head and lands back on his shoulder.

“Maybe,” Dean says, “But we have a better chance, yes?”

“Maybe,” Cas says in a small voice.

“If you help us,” Dean says, stopping so suddenly that Sam walks into the back of him, “I promise we’ll kill this Abaddon. Sam and I are trained hunters.” It’s only a little white lie. He hopes Sam keeps quiet. “We’ll kill Abaddon and then you won’t have to work for her any more. How does that sound?”

“Are you really hunters? Can you really do that?” Cas hops around them making Dean dizzy with tracking which shoulder or finger he’s on. Cas finally settles on Sam’s index finger. 

Dean hefts his bow and arrow. “With my bow and arrow I can kill her, if you take us to her,” Dean says. Dean’s going to send an arrow right through Abaddon’s heart. He knows he can do it, he’s been practicing and this is important. He’s so close to hitting the bull’s-eye on his tree target, he can do this.

Cas looks from Sam to Dean and back again and back again. Then he takes an awfully big sigh for such a little bird. “Okay, then I’ll help.”

“You’re a great little bird, Cas,” Dean says, grinning. 

“Let’s hope I’m not a dead great little bird soon.”

They speed up with Cas’s help. He leads them off the narrow trail they’re on until they find a wider track covered with gravel. This track is better used. Small birds of all colors fly up and down along the line of the track. Some are carrying things and some aren’t. Occasionally they see little folk about three feet tall that Dean assumes are fairies. No-one is talking, not even Cas. The only sound is the scurrying of feet on the gravel and the air moving over bird wings. None of the creatures they see look happy.

Sam catches Dean up and holds tight onto his hand. Cas is flying behind them now as if ushering them along. No-one’s looking at them or even seems to take any notice of their existence at all and Dean wonders how common it is for captured kids to be led along this track to their fate at Abaddon’s hands. 

After a little while the number of birds increases and the number of fairies drops to none at all. 

“We’re near Abaddon’s palace,” Cas says in a low, shaky voice. “When we get inside, take out your bow and arrows. I’m going to take you straight up to see Abaddon and if you don’t kill her with your first shot we’re done for.” Dean nods to show that he’s heard. He doesn’t trust his voice to speak. Sam and Cas are relying on him and he doesn’t want to let them know how scared he is. They walk on.

When they turn the next corner, Dean stops. An enormous palace fills every part of his view. Black walls and turrets with gold tops reach up nearly into the clouds. There are bridges that cross from one turret to the next, ramparts with gargoyles that seem to run for miles, windows that range from narrow slits to whole walls. The whole thing would be magnificent if it didn’t exude an air of pure evil. Sam grips his hand tighter and Cas is flying around so obviously nervous that he’s going to give them away if he’s not careful.

Cas leads them to the bottom of one of the turrets and lands on a perch by the door. “Take out your bow and arrow,” he says, “But keep them hidden.”

Dean nods and makes himself ready. “Stay behind me Sam,” he says and he’s glad Sam doesn’t need telling twice.

They set off up the spiral stone staircase. Cas flies around their heads, sometimes in front, sometimes behind. Sam keeps close to Dean, peering around Dean to see ahead of them. There’s not much light but there’s enough to see where they’re stepping and to see the mushrooms that are growing in green slime on the walls that Dean tries not to touch. Dean counts two hundred and twenty steps in all and he’s breathing hard by the time they reach the top.

The first thing Dean sees when they enter the room at the top of the staircase is cages and cages of birds everywhere the eye can see. Sam peeks out from under his arm in awe at the sight. All the birds have a red hair tied to one leg like Cas does and Dean concludes it’s some kind of ownership thing and he’s going to bet the twenty cents he’s got in his pocket that Abaddon will have red hair.

Cas uses his wing to point to a row of cages ahead and to the left. The birds in those cages are either quiet or asleep, though some of them look up vaguely interested at the entrance of their little group. “Those are older. Some of them have been here almost as long as I have. Those over there,” he points to a cage of noisy birds some of which are flying up the bars regularly as if trying to find a way out. “Those are new, they’ll quieten soon.”

“And by quieten, you mean lose their will to fight?” Dean asks, watching the poor birds panic in their cage.

Cas acknowledges the truth of what Dean says with an unhappy duck of his head.

Pushing Sam back behind him, Dean tightens his grip on his bow and arrow. 

“Come on,” Dean says. “Let’s get this over with.”

Cas flies around their heads guiding them further and further into the room until eventually he lands on a gilded perch and ducks his head in a bow. 

“Your majesty,” Cas says. “I have brought you a prize.” Cas sounds petrified. Dean himself is scared stiff so he’s not surprised Cas is but if Dean, who hardly knows him, can tell, surely Abaddon can.

Dean’s hands twitch on his weapon as the evil fairy Abaddon stares at him and Sam from her throne of bones. She’s dressed all in black and has fiery red hair (Dean totally called it) that flows over her shoulders. There’s nothing kind about her face at all, even her smile radiates evil.

“Castiel,” she says in greeting, getting up out of her throne. She holds out a finger and Cas hesitates briefly before he flies to perch on it. “Well done. Here is my dinner.”

“We’re nobody’s dinner, lady,” Dean says. “And we want our little brother back.” 

Abaddon laughs. The sound of it makes Dean’s back prickle. He pulls out his bow and arrow and aims it straight at Abaddon.

“Oh, Castiel, did you know about this? You always were trouble.” Abaddon’s evil smile turns into a mask of hatred. She moves so fast Dean doesn’t see how it happens but she closes her fist around Cas. Cas is squealing and struggling in her grip. One squeeze and Cas will be pulverized and Dean can’t let that happen because Cas trusted in him. Dean draws the bow and fires before he’s had time to properly target his shot.

The arrow flies wide, Abaddon side-steps easily, laughing at him. Dean draws another arrow. Cas struggles in Abaddon’s hand. Sam is hiding behind Dean.

“Do you want to see your brother?” Abaddon asks. Dean hesitates even though he knows he should just shoot her right now. Abaddon takes his hesitation as assent and points to a cage of nervous birds. One little brown bird in particular is flinging itself against the bars of the cage, fluttering its wings madly as it beats at the cage uselessly. Dean thinks the bird is crying.

“That’s your precious baby brother.” 

Adam is a bird? Dean looks at all the other cages. Then are all these other birds kids? Is Cas a kid? Dean sees red. He readies an arrow in his bow but he’s all fingers and thumbs when his anger gets the better of him. While he’s fumbling Abaddon reaches across to one of the other cages, one where the birds had been quiet and sleeping but are now awake and waiting, and undoes its door. 

The whole cage of birds flies out in a rush and surrounds Dean and Sam, flying at their faces and pecking. Dean drops his bow and arrow and puts his arms up to defend himself. He hears Cas through the melee, calling his and Sam’s names. The birds force them back towards the stairs by their sheer numbers. Sam is yelling and screaming. Cas is suddenly with them too, thrown into the flock by Abaddon. Dean grabs Cas in one hand, and Sam with the other to keep them safe as they’re forced down the stairs to the turret, then down more stairs and into a dark, dank dungeon. Dean stumbles onto his butt from a sudden absence of birds and he lets go of Cas and Sam as he falls. A heavy grate with a fine wire mesh is dropped behind them, sealing them in.

Cas flies straight to the heavy grate. All the other birds fly around on the other side, coming up to the grate to look in at their prisoners in turn. Cas flutters around the grate but the mesh is too small for him to get out. 

“Please, please, we can all be free,” Cas says, pleading with his fellow birds. “If we work together, we can kill Abaddon and you can all go home.”

“She’ll kill us if we help you Castiel. Just look at you, you’re as good as dead,” one apple-green bird says.

“We’re sorry, Castiel,” a few birds say in chorus as they start to drift out of the dungeon. They do sound sorry but they’re still not doing anything to help. 

Dean watches Cas flying desperately at the mesh and he knows it’s his fault. He promised Cas he could kill Abaddon and he was way too cocky. He’s not a real hunter yet and he should have been honest. Sam sits down beside him looking as if he’s holding back tears. Dean puts an arm around his shoulders. They set out to get Adam and now Dean’s landed them all in trouble.

A few birds stay briefly then cast apologetic looks back at Cas before they too fly up the stairs and out of sight. 

Cas gives up flying at the mesh and comes to sit sadly on a piece of rusty old metal at the back of the dungeon. Even his feathers look dulled.

“I’m sorry Cas,” Dean says. “I really thought I could kill her. I may have…” Dean ducks his head. “I may have exaggerated about me and Sam being hunters. We’re just learning really.”

Cas sighs. “It’s not your fault Dean. I knew it wouldn’t work, deep down in my heart, but it was nice to hope for a while.”

There’s a rattle as Sam tries the bar of the cage. “Cas, if Adam’s a bird does that mean that you’re a real boy too?” 

“Yes, not a human boy, but close,” Cas says. “I was once, anyway.”

“If not a human boy then what?” Dean asks. Dad always taught them not to trust anything non-human but Dean would trust Cas with his life. He kind of has. He just hopes Cas isn’t a werewolf or shifter or vampire or any of those other things they kill.

“I was an angel,” Cas says.

“Phooey,” says Sam. “Angels aren’t real. Dad says so.”

Cas shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. Now I’m a bird and soon I’ll be a dead bird.”

“I believe you,” Dean says. He holds out his finger for Cas to perch on and after a moment, Cas hops across. The red hair on Cas’s leg tickles Dean’s hand.

“Why is that red hair tied around your leg? And all the other birds come to that.” Dean flicks at the hair and Cas shrugs.

“No reason that I know of,” he says, disinterested.

“C’mon Cas, there’s got to be a reason.”

Sam pushes his face in close to look at the hair. “What happens if you take it off?”

“Don’t!” Cas says, alarmed.

“Why not?” Dean says, his curiosity piqued. “What’ll happen if we do?”

“I…” Cas looks flummoxed. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But something bad, definitely. Something really bad.”

Sam looks around the dungeon. “Whatever happens can’t be more bad than this can it?”

Cas squints at the red hair. “I suppose not,” he says, sounding unsure.

Dean grips the hair with his finger and thumb. “It’s Abaddon’s hair. I want to take it off. I don’t want anything of her on you. Are you good with that?”

Cas doesn’t look as if he’s good with that but he closes his eyes and nods. Dean fiddles with the knot in the hair with the fingers of his free hand. It loosens easily and he takes a deep breath.

“I’m going to take it all the way off now,” he says. Both Sam and Cas tense. Cas still has his eyes closed. Sam has stopped breathing. Dean pulls the last piece of the knot away and the hair slips off Cas’s leg.

As soon as the hair falls away, Cas starts sparkling, glittery and blue, like a firework and Dean leaps back pulling Sam with him. All Dean can think is he’s killed him. Cas is going to burn out of existence right in front of Dean and Dean can’t watch. He turns away. He doesn’t want Sam to see Cas die either so he tries to put a hand over Sam’s eyes but Sam pushes him away. 

“Look, Dean, look!” Sam says, tugging at Dean’s sleeve.

Reluctantly, Dean looks, dreading seeing nothing left, or worse a dead bird on the stone floor, but what he does see nearly makes his heart stop. The sparkly, glittery, blue shape has grown bigger and is starting to stop sparkling and being glittery, and standing there, as the magic fades away, is a small boy. A small boy, maybe a couple of years older than Dean, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, and frigging amazing beautiful blue wings. 

Dean and Sam look on, eyes open wide, mouths slack at Cas as he looks down at himself, then up at them with a growing smile. He stretches his wings out from one side of the dungeon to the other.

“Thank you,” Cas exclaims. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He hops up and hovers on his wings for a moment or two. He drops back down again and whirls around. Sam and Dean duck to avoid being clouted by huge feathers. 

“Um, you’re welcome,” Dean says. “But I hate to break it to you but we’re still going to get eaten by Abaddon. You’re just a bigger meal now.”

Cas’s excitement doesn’t fade. “We need to persuade the others to help.”

“They weren’t that keen before,” Dean points out.

“But now…,” Cas says. He stretches his wings out again, looking pleased. “None of us wanted to do Abaddon’s bidding. I think this might be enough to persuade them that we have a chance to overthrow Abaddon.”

With renewed excitement Dean, Sam and Cas wait eagerly for any of the birds to come back down to the dungeon. They have to wait a long time it seems to them but after a few hours five birds come down with food. It’s only bread and water and Dean eyes it hungrily, calculating that they’ll definitely have five minutes to eat something before overthrowing the evil fairy. Hunting is hungry work. 

Unfortunately, the birds drop the food with a clatter when they see Cas. The birds fly around in anxious circles and chirp and mutter to themselves, then one, braver than the others or she just drew the short straw flies up to the bars and settles on a perch.

“Who are you?” she says, staring at Cas.

“Hannah,” Cas says, addressing the little bird, “It’s me, Castiel. Dean and Sam rescued me from Abaddon’s curse and they can do the same for you. You can be real little boys and girls again. Ash, don’t you want to go home? Jo?”

The other birds come to settle on the perch. Their wings twitch nervously and they huddle close together.

“Are you really Castiel?”

“Yes, really. Help us escape and we’ll kill Abaddon and we’ll set everyone free.”

The birds on the perch look at each other. “Prove that you’re Castiel first,” one of the bigger birds says.

Cas looks despondent for a moment. “I’m not sure how…,” but then he smiles quietly. “If you come here, I’ll do something better. I’ll remove the curse and you can be real again, like me.”

“It’s a trick,” one of the birds says and the little group gets agitated again.

Sam pushes to the bars next to Cas. “It’s not a trick, we promise.” 

Dean hurries up beside them. “Listen to Cas. We can save everyone.”

The birds mutter amongst themselves on the perch, then Hannah steps forward shuffling along the perch until Cas can reach her. “Okay, do it to me. Remove the curse.”

Cas reaches through the bars with his finger and thumb and grabs hold of the red hair around Hannah’s leg. Hannah closes her eyes and her little beak clenches. Cas undoes the knot and without any hesitation removes the hair from Hannah’s leg. As the hair falls away Hannah sparkles with green and orange glitter and stars. The other birds take off in alarm. 

Dean watches the whole thing, watches the shape in the sparkles grow bigger and bigger, then the sparkles fade away and under the perch where just now there was a bird there’s a little girl of about eight years old standing on the floor.

The other birds fly around and around Hannah while she giggles and cheers and dances around. “It’s true,” she says in wonder. She turns to the other birds. “With Dean, Sam and Castiel’s help we can kill Abaddon and we’ll all be free.”

The remaining birds swarm around the grate with shouts of, “Me next!”, “me”, “no, me,” clamoring in Dean’s ears. Dean, Sam and Cas take one bird each and take off the little red hair around their legs. The dungeon is bright with multi-colored glitter and sparkles until everyone is done and five boys and girls of all ages from Sam’s age to Dean’s age stand in the dungeon. It’s not long before Dean, Sam and Cas are set free of their cage. Dean looks around at their little raggedy army, and everyone looks back at him expectantly. He’s not going to let them down again.

“Well, let’s get my bow and arrows and let’s get this show on the road,” Dean says. He starts up the stairs, the others crowding close behind him.

On the way up the stairs and to Abaddon’s turret room, they run into more birds. Gradually the number of kids grows as friends meet friends and are persuaded to remove the red hair from their leg, and the curse is lifted. By the time they reach the turret room, Dean reckons there’s at least fifty kids trailing in his wake. Everyone’s scared and whispering quietly and as they get to the door to the room they all fall quiet. Dean readies his bow and an arrow. He’s not going to miss this time.

The little army ease into the room. The birds in the cages start going crazy, flying into the bars or each other in a frenzy. The birds out of the cages are flying around the group of kids asking questions, getting more and more excited. Dean sees one or two sparks as some of the birds are un-cursed as they move through the room but he ignores it because he needs to concentrate. 

The screech from inside the room when Abaddon realizes something is going on is deafening. “What is happening? How dare you.” 

Abaddon rushes into Dean’s field of view and he raises his bow. Abaddon surges forward her face twisted in anger. She swipes at Dean and makes a grab for the bow, pulling it out of Dean’s hands so it skitters across the floor.

“Everyone, fly at Abaddon,” he hears Cas yell and a hundred or more birds launch themselves at the evil fairy that captured them. Some are sent careering hard into walls as she waves her arms around and screeches at them. One she grabs in one fist and starts to squeeze until Sam runs at her and pummels her in the gut and she drops it. The kids start to open all the bird cages and more and more birds come out and mob Abaddon. More kids join in with Sam and start pushing at her. 

Abaddon screams and shrieks. She’s walking backwards under the onslaught of kids and birds until she hits a wall. She edges along the wall as the attack continues trying to get away and having nowhere else to go.

“I’ll get you, I’ll get you all,” she howls, flailing her arms ineffectively against the horde that’s pushing her along. When she reaches the turret room’s open window she stumbles having nothing suddenly behind her. Her arms go out to grab the frame of the window but her hands are pecked by hundreds of tiny beaks and she lets go, tumbling backwards out of the window, letting out an inhuman scream as she falls, until Dean hears a distant thud and the scream is cut off abruptly. 

“Is she dead?” Sam asks.

Kids and birds back away from the window and Dean rushes forward. Sam appears on one side and Cas on the other and they stare down at Abaddon’s broken, mangled body looking tiny on the ground many, many feet down at the bottom of the turret.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s dead,” Dean says.

“You did it,” Cas says. 

“No, we did it,” says Dean. “We make a good team.” And they had help of course. 

Dean turns back into the room where there’s all sorts of commotion going on. The little red hairs on all the birds legs are fizzling out of existence of their own accord, Abaddon’s curse evidently broken. The room is filled with a over a hundred sparkly, glittery rainbows and as the sparkling dies away Dean stares, mouth agape, at hundreds of kids of all shapes and sizes and ages crammed into the turret room. Babies crawl, toddlers toddle, the older kids dance around and some knock over cages or throw them out of the windows.

“We have to find Adam,” Dean says, worried that someone might stand on him in the crush.

He and Sam wade through the other kids. It’s hard to see much of anything in between all the legs and they end up checking a lot of babies who aren’t Adam. When they find them, they pick them up out of harm’s way and hand them to any nearby older kid to look after but Dean’s starting to think they’ll never find their little brother. Then Cas calls out from across the room and when Dean looks, he’s holding a squirming baby aloft.

“Is this what you’re looking for.”

“Adam!” Sam says, surging forward with Dean fast in his wake.

Adam waves his arms around and gurgles happily, reaching out to Dean as Cas hands him over. Dean is so relieved he squeezes him tight until Adam squeals a complaint. Sam starts pulling faces and the baby giggles, delighted. Dean almost can’t believe it. Adam’s safe, Sam’s safe, he’s safe.

“Let’s go home,” Dean says.

The cry is picked up around the room by the children closest to him, then wider and wider until everyone’s talking about home. Kids pick up unclaimed babies and toddlers, hold hands in groups, and with whoops and yells of joy they start heading down the stairs from the turret. 

“What will happen to them all?” Dean asks Cas. “Will they be okay?”

Cas nods. “They’ll go back to where they came from and their families. Though some of them have been here a long time so their families might be surprised to see them.”

Cas has been here almost the longest time. He’ll go back to his family too and Dean won’t see him again. It feels like he’s known him forever and he’s missing him already. “Where’s home for you Cas? What are your parents like?”

Cas’s good cheer seems to desert him. “Home is Heaven, and we don’t have parents, not like you do. I have lots of siblings but they always disapproved of me.”

“Yeah, but, I’m sure they missed you.” Dean hesitates, feeling the blush starting on his cheeks. “I mean, you’re pretty awesome.”

Cas smiles sadly shaking his head. “That’s a nice compliment, but they were probably happy to be rid of me.” 

“Well I’m going to miss you,” Sam says. He puts his arms around Cas’s middle and under his wings and squeezes.

“You know,” Dean says, kicking something small and golden across the room and staring at his foot so that he doesn’t have to look at Cas’s face when he says no, “You could come home with us.”

“I could?” Dean look up to see hope in Cas’s face.

“He can?” Sam says, unlocking his octopus arms from Cas’s middle. “Really?” 

“Why not?” Dean tickles Adam under the chin. “You’d like another big brother wouldn’t you Adam?” Adam gurgles happily.

“Dad’ll probably notice the wings,” Sam says frowning and tugging on a feather. Cas bats him away. 

“No one can see my wings in your world,” Cas says.

Dean grins. “Then that’s settled.” Cas looks very happy and Dean’s pleased to have put the smile back on his face.

Dean, Sam, Adam and Cas are the last ones back through the fairy ring. True to Cas’s promise, his wings have disappeared and he just looks like a normal boy now. Dean runs through the fall leaves with yelps of excitement. He and Cas have one of Adam’s hands each and are swinging him between them much to the baby’s delight. 

John’s made dinner by the time they reach the house which Dean’s very happy about because he thinks he’s close to starving to death. 

“Did you have a good afternoon, boys?” John nods at Cas. “And you made a new friend?” 

Sam says, “We killed an evil fairy and rescued hundreds and hundreds of kids and this is Cas and he’s going to stay with us because he doesn’t have a home.”

John raises an eyebrow, pausing half way to the table with a jug of gravy. 

“Um,” John says. “Dean? Would you like to add anything?”

“Sam’s got an active imagination,” Dean says, glaring at Sam as he puts Adam in his high-chair. “Because obviously we wouldn’t have gone through a fairy circle and taken on the evil fairy without coming home to get you first.”

“Obviously,” their father says looking as if he doesn’t know what to believe.

“But Cas really doesn’t have a home and as he, um, helped, us with the thing we were doing that was not killing the evil fairy and rescuing a whole bunch of kids, we thought, maybe, he could stay with us.” Dean stutters to a stop.

John looks around at all of them. Then he goes into the kitchen and comes back out with an extra plate and knife and fork. 

“Welcome to John’s home for waifs and strays, Cas.”

THE END


End file.
